ed
guest. It was now quite plain that, instead of being a governess as she
had asserted, my friend was a lady of good family, and the Baron's
social equal.

The party was a very pleasant one, and there was considerable merriment
at table. My hostess's apprehension of the previous day had all
disappeared, while the Baron's demeanour was one of calm security.

I sat at her left hand, and she was particularly gracious to me, the
whole conversation at table being in French.

At last, after dessert, the Baron remarked that, as it was his birthday,
we should have snap-dragon, and, with his hostess's permission, left the
dining-room and prepared it. Presently it appeared in a big antique
Worcester bowl, and was placed on the table close to me.

Then the electric light was switched off and the spirit ignited.

Next moment with shouts of laughter, the blue flames shedding a weird
light upon our faces, we were pulling the plums out of the fire--a
childish amusement.

I had placed one in my mouth, and swallowed it, but as I was taking a
second from the blue flames, I suddenly felt a faintness. At first I put
it down to the heat of the room, but a moment later I felt a sharp spasm
through my heart, and my brain swelled too large for my skull. My jaws
were set. I tried to speak, but was unable to articulate a word!

I saw the fun had stopped, and the faces of all were turned upon me
anxiously. The Baron had risen, and his dark countenance peered into
mine with a fiendish murderous expression.

"I'm ill!" I gasped. "I--I'm sure I'm poisoned!"

The faces of all smiled again, while the Baron uttered some words which
I could not understand, and then there was a dead silence, all still
watching me intently.

"You fiends!" I cried, with a great effort, as I struggled to rise.
"What have I done to you that you should--_poison--me_?"

I know that the Baron grinned in my face, and that I fell forward
heavily upon the table, my heart gripped in the spasm of death.

Of what occurred afterwards I have no recollection, for, when I slowly
regained knowledge of things around me, I found myself, cramped and
cold, lying beneath a bare, leafless hedge in a grass field. I managed
to struggle to my feet and discovered myself in a bare, flat, open
country. As far as I could judge it was midday.

I got to a gate, skirted a hedge, and gained the main road. With
difficulty I walked to the nearest town, a distance of about four miles,
withou